Slashdot Mirror
One Giant Cargo Ship Pollutes As Much As 50M Cars
thecarchik writes "One giant container ship pollutes the air as much as 50 million cars. Which means that just 15 of the huge ships emit as much as today's entire global 'car park' of roughly 750 million vehicles. Among the bad stuff: sulfur, soot, and other particulate matter that embeds itself in human lungs to cause a variety of cardiopulmonary illnesses. Since the mid-1970s, developed countries have imposed increasingly stringent regulations on auto emissions. In three decades, precise electronic engine controls, new high-pressure injectors, and sophisticated catalytic converters have cut emissions of nitrous oxides, carbon dioxides, and hydrocarbons by more than 98 percent. New regulations will further reduce these already minute limits. But ships today are where cars were in 1965: utterly uncontrolled, free to emit whatever they like." According to Wikipedia, 57 giant container ships (rated from 9,200 to 15,200 twenty-foot equivalent units) are plying the world's oceans.
Though ships of old were typically wooden, there is no requirement at all that a sailing vessel be made of wood (and modern sailing vessels typically aren't).
We know that the only things that float are wood, ducks, witches, and the occasional very small pebble. If not wood than what, ducks? A duck can't even carry a coconut without sinking. Small pebble can't carry very much, and witches are incredibely difficult to work with. So tehre you have it: wood. So sayeth the Ways of Science.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
The most energy efficient ground transport, I've been told, is a horse riding a bicycle.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear